Sexual Violence

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Bogotá, June 4, 2015--The Colombian attorney general's office announced Monday that charges have been dropped against Alejandro Cárdenas Orozco, a paramilitary fighter who confessed to taking part in the 2000 kidnapping of Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya, who was also raped in the attack, according to news reports. Cárdenas later retracted his confession, according to reports.

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In the past, donors and groups providing security to
journalists in less-developed nations tended to export a Western,
military-style of training designed for a war-time environment. But the danger of
covering combat is one thing. Being fired upon by a motorcycle-riding assassin
is another--as is being sexually
molested in a crowd, discovering a video camera in one's bedroom, or having
one's phone calls intercepted. And then there is emotional toll of losing
dear colleagues, and wondering whether you or your family will be next.

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A British journalist trying to cover the Delhi gang rape
trial was asked to leave the courtroom on Tuesday after the prosecution
objected to the presence of the international press. Andrew Buncombe, a
correspondent for The Independent of
London, was ejected from a court in the Indian capital even though a
wide-ranging order restricting press coverage had been lifted last month.

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In a welcome move, Indian media will finally be allowed to
cover court proceedings in the rape case that shook India's conscience. On
Friday, the Delhi High Court lifted a gag order on media covering the ongoing trial
of those accused of the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Delhi in
December.

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"He's free! He's free!" a friend of mine
from Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, shouted down the phone line on Sunday. For a
fleeting second I did not know whom he referred to, given the high
number of journalists imprisoned in the Horn region of Africa--but then it
dawned on me: Abdiaziz Abdinuur had finally found justice. The 25-year-old
freelance reporter was arrested
on January 10 in Mogadishu for the most incomprehensible alleged crime:
conducting an interview.

Today marks International Women's Day. Hashtags like #IWD
and #InternationalWomensDay have been trending on Twitter. Among the twitterati
who voiced their support for women's rights was Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh. He tweeted:

PM: Let me reiterate in this House the commitment of our govt. to ensuring the dignity, safety and security of every woman of this country.

Even though members of the Karnataka state government have
provided broad assurances that they will drop
charges against Naveen Soorinje, the young journalist remains imprisoned two months after
he was arrested for exposing an assault on women by Hindu extremists. Welcome
to Incredible India, where a journalist can be locked up for documenting a
crime against women even as millions express outrage over medieval mindsets
following the fatal gang rape of a Delhi student in December.

The story sounds hideously like another--one of a chaotic,
predatory attack on a woman journalist in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Clothes torn
from her body, hundreds of men surging to grab her breasts and claw at her. A
woman wondering, "Maybe this is how I go, how I die." It has been almost a year
and a half since CBS correspondent and CPJ board member Lara Logan endured an attack
like this. Now, an independent journalist and student named Natasha Smith
reports that it has happened to her.